24.3.12

Gloomiest of days, sorrow shade of grey, the day life walked away. Out, out as my heart last shouts, forgotten and in dismay. Glasses, blades and broken mirrors, flooding my floor and bed, o my kingdom of dreams called forever, i long and yearn to get.

19.3.12

Happy Days is a Suicidal Depressive Black Metal duo from Florida, United States and remains one of the better known act from the aforementioned subgenre. Cause of Death : Life is the band's fourth full length and it was released by the German label, Funeral Industries.

I will be honest that I am not a huge fan of Happy Days but having said that, they have managed to release pretty decent albums and demos over the past few years since 2007. I liked the 2009 album, Happiness Stops Here because there were a few songs and riffs that managed to catch my ever demanding ears eventhough I could not really tolerate the lyrics.

But at the end of the day, who am I to say? To me, this subgenre had always been about personal expression, whether the listeners can relate to it or not, that would be a subjective decision. Respect should be given where respect should be given and they earned one from me for doing what they did.

Cause of Death : Life contains 15 songs spreading 1 hour 7 minutes and 41 minutes for the first disc and another 36 minutes and 43 seconds for the second disc.The song For These Wounds Will Never Be As Deep As This Emptiness contains a very good and mesmerizing lead. The same goes to the cold sound of Broken and the dark and angry Cold Aggression. Alone And Cold was a rerecorded track from their debut demo of the same name back in 2007. 8 minute mammoth of a song, I felt the eery aura of negativity creeping in after the 2 minute mark passed. A good black metal listen indeed but suicidal? Did not quite made it there for me.

Woods of Desolation is a Depressive Black Metal band from Australia and was formed in 2005. Torn Beyond Reason was the band's second full lenght after myriads of demos and split releases since its formation.

The quality of the sound in this full lenght is by far one of the best that ive heard so far. The multi layered guitars were utilized to its fullest potential creating a wide landscape of melancholic sound and atmosphere with the lead notes continued to soar high on top of the main riffs while the screaming vocals enchanted each and every song with sorrowful wails, broken but still hoping for one last breath of air. Clean melodic singing made its appearrance here and there but being heavy with reverbs and echoes, made the clean singing sounded hollow and empty.

This album contains six songs with play time reaching 37 minutes and 43 seconds. My favorite track would have to be the fourth track, The Inevitable End, which happens to be the longest track among the six. The riff and anchor melody for that particluar song is extremely melancholic and depressive. It was difficult to not let myself drown in the sorrowful and melancholic mood while listening to The Inevitable End. It does suit the title of the song rather perfectly.

The remaining 5 each have their own gloomy moments that would made you want to stare towards a thousand miles nowhere. Well, maybe the fifth track, November, was a bit out of place eventhough it is still a good track to listen to if you are feeling less melancholic. If you are worried that this album will contain the same riffs looped one thousand times in a song or those extremely slow paced drum beats per minute, then you dont have to worry about that with Torn Beyond Reason because there were various drum patterns incorporated here from blast beats, mid tempo to those droney ultra slow drums to everybodys liking.

I have read somewhere that the main man behind Woods of Desolation, D, took his time to craft this album and to me he did a magnificent job with each and every song in this album. One word to sum the whole album? Breathtaking. Even if you are not a fan of Depressive Black Metal, this album is still worth the experiment. I recommend this.

18.3.12

Filsufatia is a depressive and melancholic black metal one man band from the scorched land called Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The band have constantly been producing and releasing songs and demos annually since it's inception way back in 2006. Melancholia, A Burden Too Much To Bear is the band's seventh demo and it contains eight depressive and melancholic black metal-esque instrumental tracks. A mix of gritty guitars, harmonies of string arrangements and pianos, the listeners shall be mesmerized by the melancholic soundscape and deep atmosphere that the band had successfully created.